The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) (37 page)

G
rey huddled on the bench, the cell phone cold on his ear. “He’s raised the stakes.”

“The letter was found this morning in the chambers of His Holiness,” Viktor said. “Jacques informed me just before I called you.”

“Killing Satanist leaders is one thing, the pope another,” Grey said. “He’ll have half of Western civilization hunting him.”

“It might not be another murder. As with mine, the language was different. This one read: “‘You will renounce your religion and acknowledge the power of Ahriman, or the hypocrisy of your Church will be revealed at the hand of the one true God on the third midnight hence.’”

“I assume the Vatican has extraordinary protective measures in place?”

“All of which I believe will be futile,” Viktor said. “Not because Darius can reach the pope, but because he has something else planned.”

“Something else what?”

“I’ve no idea. But Darius is a precise man, and he changed the language for a reason. A few things are beginning to make sense. How many victims are there in total?”

Grey ticked them off. “Matthias, Xavier, Ian, Gareth, and then the two potentials: the pope and you. That makes six.”

“Numerology is very important to magicians, Satanists, and occultists. Six victims, four of whom were given six days to repent, two of whom were given three.”

“And?” Grey said.

“Six is important to occultists and magicians because it represents the soul of man. Six-six-six is of prime interest to Satanists for its mention in Revelations Thirteen as the number of the Beast, so named because it’s the soul of man multiplied three times, acting outside the will of God, representative of mankind’s pride.”

“So why the three-day timeline for the final letters?”

“Generally,” Viktor said, “the number six is emblematic of the forces of evil, the number three the forces of good. To name but a few of its symbological meanings, the number three represents the triangular third eye of Hindu origin, as well as the Trinity of Christendom and the three days that passed before the resurrection of Christ. Darius is speaking the language of his victims’ followers.”

Grey ran through the letters in his mind. “So he called out the four heretics on the dark side for not recognizing the ‘one true God,’ called you a nonbeliever, and told the pope to renounce his religion and acknowledge the power of Ahriman.”

“I don’t know how much of this Darius actually believes, and how much he uses for effect. What is clear is that with the involvement of the pope, the endgame is nigh. Darius nears a million followers, if not there already. He’s consolidated his power base, and I assume he plans to unveil the location of his new church once he’s provided a disruption to traditional religion, to maximize effect.”

“Striking a blow against the most powerful church the world has ever known would classify as disruptive,” Grey said.

Viktor let out a slow breath. “Indeed. Impacting the Catholic Church in a significant way could create a vacuum for the human soul not seen for centuries.”

“It could also pave the way for a holy war, if the Ahriman ties get out.”

“Perhaps,” Viktor said, “though it need not be so dramatic. Darius could further his own agenda securely within the cloak of his feel-good religion.”

“What I don’t get is why he bothered with a letter to you,” Grey said.

“Perhaps he thinks eliminating the world’s foremost investigator of cults would be a nice touch, symbolic of his growing power. Or perhaps it’s… merely personal. Or both.”

“Maybe it’s time you told me about these personal issues.”

Viktor fell silent, and Grey didn’t really expect an answer. He was surprised when, in a quiet voice, Viktor proceeded to tell Grey about Eve, their common past with Darius, the tragic ending. Though useful background information, Grey knew Viktor hadn’t needed to tell him and sensed this was a catharsis of sorts.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Grey said softly.

“He blames me for what happened to Eve, and to be honest, so do I.”

“Well, you’re both wrong,” Grey said.

When Viktor didn’t respond Grey said, “You said you have no idea how he plans to ‘reveal the hypocrisy of the church’?”

“Perhaps he’s uncovered a text or an object in contradiction to scripture or church tradition, something that will shake the faith of millions. Whatever Darius plans to do, reactive measures will miss the mark. We must find him—and stop him—within the three-day deadline.”

Grey returned the phone to his pocket as a halo of ashen morning light spread behind the clouds. With dawn came traffic and pedestrians, and his last gasp of hope for a courier. He performed a series of stretches and jujitsu techniques to loosen his stiff joints, keeping a close eye on anyone entering the mail store.

Grey felt the case slipping away. He sensed that not only were he and Viktor further than ever from finding answers but also that Darius was toying with them. Grey was standing in a cold London drizzle with a rapidly dwindling chance of finding a link to New Enlightenment headquarters, Viktor was about to trek to Sicily on what Grey considered a wild-goose chase, there was a hit out on Grey, and Viktor had just received a death threat giving him three days to live. Darius now controlled a vast network of Satanists and
dangerous underworld types, the Order of New Enlightenment was growing leaps and bounds by the day, no one possessed a shred of evidence linking Darius to Simon or knew how to find him, they still had no idea how he managed to appear at the stroke of midnight and murder his victims, and their only potential lead was a terrified young woman with an incredible story.

Grey had a few other ideas on how to find the Order of New Enlightenment, namely tracking the money flow or trying to find a hacker to trace the Internet feeds. But those avenues would take time he didn’t have, with no guarantee of success.

He could use himself as bait to try to find a member of Darius’s organization who actually knew what the hell was going on, then do whatever it took to extract the information. That was a dangerous road, and one Grey didn’t want to go down unless he had to. He was also realizing that Darius’s inner circle was even smaller and tighter than suspected.

There was one person, however, who Grey thought might lead him to Darius, if he could find him.

Dante.

Grey had never met him, but he had the feeling the two of them were on a collision course that one of them would not survive.

Midmorning came and went. Grey slumped on the bench, staring at the window with heavy-lidded eyes. He could almost feel a hot shower, and would have given half his worldly possessions for a steaming cup of coffee and a full English breakfast.

He checked his watch yet again. Ten thirty a.m.

By ten forty-five he was performing breathing exercises to stay alert, and at eleven the rain picked up, turning a miserable wait into full-on torment. At eleven thirty a small East Indian man in a beige raincoat and a backpack entered the store and stood in front of PO box 550.

At first Grey thought he would open one of the adjacent boxes, but then he inserted the key into box 550, the exact position of which Grey had memorized.

Adrenaline jolted Grey awake. He watched the man hover over the PO box, extract a stack of envelopes, then stick a bundle of mail from his backpack into the box. After making his drop, the man exited the building and headed up the street, huddled under his raincoat.

Grey followed.

SICILY

V
iktor’s plane landed amid the craggy parched hills outside Palermo. He thought it quite appropriate his journey had taken him to Sicily, a place whose constant exposure to the light hid the rot underneath, leaving the casual visitor with a taste of sun-kissed vineyards and bucolic mountain villages, rather than economic inequity, government corruption, and the bitter aftertaste of a culture ravaged by organized crime.

Just, he thought, like Darius’s cult.

The driver he had organized before leaving York, an angular, gray-haired Sicilian with a lined but handsome face, met him at the gate. A rush of sweltering dry air blasted them as they walked to the black Mercedes. Viktor could hardly believe the drastic change in climate.

It had been some time since Viktor had visited Sicily. A decade ago he had investigated the ritual murder of a church official in Palermo, which turned out to be a Mafia cover-up. And as a child, his parents had taken him to Taormina, a beautiful seaside resort at the foot of Mount Etna. But that was another lifetime.

Soon they were racing through the hills outside the airport and then merging into the outskirts of Palermo, a chaotic sprawl of dilapidated apartment buildings and traffic-choked streets. Impromptu trash dumps lined the freeway into town.

As requested, the driver had left a small package for Viktor in the backseat. Viktor eyed the package greedily, eager for the shiny liquid within. He
had caught a few hours sleep on the plane, but he was still exhausted and feeling the effects of the absinthe from the previous evening.

He knew he was walking a dangerous line, especially with a mere three days to accomplish impossible tasks. The call with Grey had shamed him. He respected Grey, and he knew Grey had heard the tremor in his voice, both from the absinthe and the specter of his past.

As they passed through the city center, Viktor lowered the window to clear his head and was assaulted by the sound of honking horns, shouting vendors, and the whine of mopeds speeding between lanes. He rolled up the window when the driver cut through an alley, the pleasant aromas from street vendors supplanted by the nauseating stench of cat urine.

When the traffic ground to a halt the driver jumped the curb and whipped through a maze of narrow streets filled with overhanging laundry and shirtless men leaning on balconies. They charged through a square defined by a gleaming
enoteca
built into the graffiti-strewn ruins of a castle, and then through block after block of cement high-rises, sooty with neglect.

On the other side of the city the SUV careened back on to the highway, climbing high into the hills and following the road east along the cliffs. As civilization faded and the dry sea air rushed in, Viktor felt as if he had stepped back in time, before machines and factories had gobbled up the world, lost in a perfect union of sunlight, water and rich brown earth.

Viktor imagined Aleister Crowley traveling this same road long ago, on his way to establish his infamous Abbey of Thelema. Viktor had debated stopping in the Palazzo dei Normanni in Palermo, as it was the last place the Tutori had been mentioned. Given the three-day timeline that hung with Viktor like a circling vulture, claws extended, he decided to press on to Cefalù, reasoning that Crowley had done the legwork in Palermo for him. And he had already inquired about the Tutori with various sources at the Palazzo dei Normanni. No one had heard of either the Tutori or the Ahriman Heresy.

They crested a slope and Viktor saw the famous rock of Cefalù glowering in the distance like a titan from Greek mythology, a mammoth block of limestone that Viktor thought a fitting testament to Crowley’s ego.

The rock, which the driver said was known simply as La Rocca, jutted high above the velvety sea, the sheer cliffs topped by the ruins of a Moorish castle. The medieval town of Cefalù nestled at the feet of La Rocca, capped by the twin sandstone towers of the Duomo, under a sky so deep blue it looked bruised.

A place of surreal and isolated beauty, set amid a notoriously tight-lipped and lawless society. Viktor could see why Crowley had chosen it.

The Abbey of Thelema: Crowley’s very own school of magic, a cesspool of sex, drugs, and occult experimentation that gave rise to Crowley’s dubbing as the Wickedest Man in the World. The infamous abbey lasted until 1923, when one of Crowley’s adepts died after drinking cat’s blood consumed during a sacrifice. After a public outcry Mussolini closed the abbey, forcing Crowley to leave the country.

Despite the location, had Crowley come halfway across the world to Cefalù, a virtual lost world in 1920, merely to establish his school? More likely, Viktor thought, Crowley had the dual objective of using Cefalù as a research base to pursue the mythical Ahriman Grimoire.